1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a video switching apparatus for switching a plurality of video inputs on a time unit basis of a frame, a field, or the like, outputting them to a recording/reproducing apparatus, and outputting reproduction video images from the recording/reproducing apparatus to a monitor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, a video switching apparatus called a frame switcher or a multiplexer is connected to a recording/reproducing apparatus and used. Upon recording, the video switching apparatus switches a plurality of video signals of monitoring cameras or the like on a time unit basis of a frame, a field, or the like, multiplexes an identification (ID) signal to them, and outputs the resultant video signals, and those signals are recorded by the recording/reproducing apparatus.
Upon reproduction, the ID signal multiplexed to the video signal reproduced from the recording/reproducing apparatus is read (e.g., by bit reading portion shown herein later) and, when it coincides with a set ID in the video switching apparatus, the video signal is written in a memory and outputted to a monitor (e.g., by CPU, video input selecting portion, output means). When it does not coincide with the set ID, the video signal is not written in the memory but the video signal written in the memory is outputted to the monitor.
As mentioned above, when the recorded video images are reproduced while switching a plurality of video images by multiplexing the ID signal to the video signal, the ID signal is set by the video switching apparatus and only the video image to which the same ID signal has been multiplexed can be outputted to the monitor.
In the above conventional video switching apparatus, however, there are two kinds of operating modes of a recording mode and a reproducing mode. The recording/reproducing mode of the video switching apparatus has to be manually set in accordance with the operating mode of the recording/reproducing apparatus connected to the video switching apparatus and there is such a problem that if the operating mode is erroneously set, the video signal cannot be correctly recorded/reproduced.